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The Running Dead

We’re back with a really kick ass episode. I’ll try to catch up with blogs pertaining to the other episodes that I missed later on, but for now…The Running Dead.

Now before you ask, no, unfortunately, I did not train as well for this as I would have liked. And yes indeed, I did hit the wall fairly early on. But in my own defense, no one told me I’d have to run up the side of A FUCKING MOUNTAIN ! The three tiny heart attacks and mild stroke I suffered were nothing compared to the joy of finishing– despite Bryan Johnson’s obvious attempts at sabotage.

Let’s talk about our transactions. The first thing you almost didn’t see – The Bat Baseball. Very cool, one of a kind item signed by: Adam “Batman” West, Burt “Robin” Ward, two Catwomen, Julie Newmar and Lee Merriweather, The Penguin himself, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshen, The Riddler, and the oddest of all, Art Carney, who played The Archer. You almost didn’t see this because, as Walt so eloquently puts it, “We don’t do sports collectibles.” Thankfully, he made an exception in this case.

Geek Note: Walt and I did a count on the actors who were part of the show or played major villains –who are still alive–and we figure that we could, MAYBE, get six more signatures for the ball: Yvonne Craig, Joan Collins, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Leslie Gore, Jill St. John, and Van Williams. We haven’t started on that project yet.

House of Secrets #92, which was the first appearance of Swamp Thing, is an actual piece of comic history. Not only did it introduce a character who would go on to make the career of one of comic’s greatest writers, the extraordinary gentleman Alan Moore, it also cemented the career of Bernie Wrightson as the premier modern horror artist. It would have been nice to acquire this book, but the seller didn’t leave us any room to make a profit.

The Batman cereal. Just shows you that Ming will eat anything.

Finally, the Gremlin-walk, dude. The Sheena comic, while interesting as a footnote in comics history, was in terrible shape. There was absolutely not profit to be made and essentially, Walt paid the guy to leave. Weird walk, huh?

Geek Note: The Eisner connection to Sheena was cool, and while Eisner was a full partner in the Iger Studios, the bulk of the artwork chores fell on his shoulders. One of the rarest golden age comic books, Wonderman, put out by Fox Comics, was such a direct rip-off of Superman that Fox was brought into court and Eisner testified against Fox stating that they told him to directly copy Superman. As a direct of that lawsuit, they only put out one copy of the comic and it continues to be one of the most valuable, and elusive books on the back market.

That’s gonna wrap it up for this week. Thanks to everyone who sponsored Ming and me in the race: Mike Ciavolino of Shore Creative, our friends at Surf Taco, Jack’s Music, Tom and Readies Deli, Ken Kalada of Yestercades and Eric Silverstein. Happy to have helped Kevin raise money for The Wayne Foundation. Happy I finished. Happy I survived.